Contrasts emerge in officers' testimony on immigration

Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger speaks with reporters after testifying at the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security last week.

Testifying to Congress last week on a federal program that empowers local officers to enforce immigration law, Montgomery and Frederick counties' top law enforcement officials offered starkly contrasting assessments of the program's effectiveness in fighting crime.

Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins and Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger were the only two officers summoned March 4 by a House of Representatives committee looking into the controversial "287g" program — one of several Congressional inquiries launched in the wake of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's call for a "new path forward" on a range of DHS operations, including immigration policy.

One congressman on the House Committee of Homeland Security called the fate of 287g a "litmus test" for the country's tack on immigration enforcement.

The voluntary program allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to train local and state officers to make immigration-related arrests. ICE has trained 951 officers in 67 agencies as of October, including the Frederick County Sheriff's Office, which signed on in April.

Sheriff Jenkins hailed 287g's central role in the county's effort to combat an "enormous increase in violent crime which can be tied directly to illegal immigrants."

"The bleeding of our borders and the crime associated with it is, in fact, terrorism," he said. "… We are dying on American soil."

Frederick has made 337 arrests through 287g since April. Nine of the 309 illegal immigrants remanded into ICE custody were members of the gangs MS-13 or 18th Street, Jenkins said, and the crimes included drunk driving, second-degree rape and attempted second-degree murder. ICE can take the suspect into custody for deportation before or after a conviction.

Speaking as legislative chairman of a group that represents the country's 56 largest police departments, Chief Manger told the committee that Montgomery County sends ICE the names of violent suspects and foreign-born inmates — but that like 95 percent of jurisdictions, Montgomery has and will continue to balk at 287g because it "undermines the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities," is too costly for most agencies and requires training that "would significantly detract from the core mission of local police to create safe communities."

"Prior to just a few years ago, enforcing immigration law was solely a federal responsibility. It was a specialty, like the IRS and tax law," Manger said. "If the federal government comes to the conclusion someday that too many people are tax evaders, will the solution be to authorize local police to enforce tax laws? … I'm not trying to be critical of those agencies that do participate; it just would not work in most large, urban jurisdictions."

The program sparked partisan debate last week as lawmakers wrestled with a federal investigation that found that 287g lacks explicit objectives and controls, which leads to inconsistent enforcement.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office's probe calls for tighter accounting and federal oversight.

ICE agreed with the findings and will clarify the program's responsibilities and reporting standards in the next six months, said William Riley, acting director of ICE's Office of State and Local Coordination.

Frederick County was not among the agencies reviewed.

That enforcement and record-keeping is at the heart of a lawsuit that the state's largest immigrant advocacy group filed against the Frederick sheriff's office in January after being unable to obtain records relating to the 287g arrests.

Casa of Maryland has since determined that a quarter of Frederick's 287g arrests were for driving violations, said Justin Cox, who is heading up Casa's lawsuit.

And contrary to Jenkins's testimony before Congress, Cox said in an interview that 287g has "absolutely" fueled the perception among Frederick's growing immigrant community that local police cannot be trusted.

"They see the sheriff's office in particular as something to be avoided at all costs," Cox said. "This is including not just the undocumented folks, but everyone."

Jenkins is scheduled for a deposition in Montgomery County Circuit Court next week.